Tuesday, April 16, 2024

First Ride

I've not much to say today, but I will post a couple of family pics. Although Danica has been driving her car for awhile, neither Sue nor I had the privilege of experiencing a ride, I still haven't, but Danica took her into the city on the weekend. The mission was to go to the Apple Store to get her faulty ear buds checked.



Shauna was running other errands but joined them at the mall.




Sue was aghast that those ↑ coffees and cookies cost more that $30. 

I'll throw in a selfie of Sue and me on a walk. It was for Sue's potd, with the theme being affection, or something close to that. Of course, being closer to the camera, I look gigantic.



Sunday, April 14, 2024

Daffs and Things

I just have two unrelated photos and a video to share in today's post.

I am surprised to see a daffodil blooming in what will be a clump of tulips in a few weeks. I planted daffodils years ago. I don't think we've any any for the past few years, and yet, there it is.


To confound me even more, I saw another daffodil bud a little later in a different spot.  It is a little behind in its development but should flower soon. It's good because I like daffodils, even these old-fashioned, generic ones. We had a mass of them in our previous abode.

I took that ↑ photo with my telephote lens, because I didn't want to fuss about much in the rain. However, I was also able to use it for this next photo. Sue was out yesterday, and I had a free coffee offer about to expire, so I took the coffee and a donut to our usual hangout near the boat launch. I used the telephoto from the driver's seat to capture part the tree across the way.


Posting that Canadian English video  the other day has led to more suggestions from YT. This one is by a British lady, but includes our same Canadian guy and an American lady. The British host showed pictures of objects and asked both the Canadian and American what they called that object. Then she shared what Brits would call the same thing. It's about 20 minutes long if the topic interests you.


Saturday, April 13, 2024

Was it Real?

It was a brief image that came to me as snuggled in my chair late one rainy morning. As brief as it was, it kept lingering in my then awake brain. It was odd for it to linger since when pictures cross my brain, they tend to just float away. And yet I can still see this one in my imagination, albeit fuzzily, several days later.

I was looking downhill along a somewhat shady, tree-lined street. I think there were some cars parked along the street although that part is a bit unclear, but there were older two-storey* homes on the sides.

I feel as though it might have been a view that I might have spied from my bicycle somewhere in Montreal back about 65 years ago.

The question is whether it was some sort of amalgam of things seen, kind of AI-like, or was it, perhaps, a real image that my brain captured and, somehow, retrieved all these years later.

I asked Adobe AI to render something with those keywords, but this ↓ was not what I saw. I think my street was narrower with trees actually arcing over the street . My houses were set back just a bit farther and were a different style and not so attached. Nevertheless, Photoshop put together something realistic and interesting in my first ever trial of asking it to render a complete photo from scratch. So far, I have only asked AI to add very small items to photos. It is all just for interest sake.


Now, what say you? Do you think my brain retrieved an actual image from decades past, or was it just sort of composite of things that I may have seen?  And was it Montreal, and was I on my bike? Or perhaps, it had nothing at all to do with real sightings.

I am curious, but we will never know for sure.

* I see that spellcheck doesn't like my spelling of 'storey'. It's the more British and Canadian way of distinguishing between a narrative story and a storey or floor in a building

.


Friday, April 12, 2024

Honking Horde

We walked around the pond, the bigger one and not the one that we visit frequently. It was a bit of a slog because, aside from the pond itself, the path is stark with no trees to speak of, and it was also somewhat mushy.

One quite wonderful thing did occur. There were geese at the far end, but then we heard much honking as another large skein approached. They teased us by going around twice before they actually landed, all accompanied by much noise.

I am not a video guy, but I held up the phone and took a few clips. I merged them into the one video, below (about 37 seconds).


I really enjoyed see so many geese, honking their little hearts out, before they finally landed on the pond and continued honking furiously for a long while afterward. I guess they were catching up with old friends.

Thursday, April 11, 2024

Early Spring Flowers

I have already posted both snowdrops and crocuses, but more flowers are poking through. So far, most are little and close to the ground.

There are some in the park where someone has planted them around a boulder at some point. There are crocuses here, but they are just about done. I don't know what this flower is. 

double exposure

I had purchased a little portable and extendable seat after photographing the snowdrops a few weeks ago. Sue took a photo. Frankly, I barely recognize myself and think it would have taken me some staring to figure that it was me, if I didn't already know. This is not how I picture myself, but it is reality. Whatever the case, I am still young in my dreams.

Who is that old man?


The daffodils are beginning to bloom. This is from the same spot: a bud with other daffodil blooms as an overlay in this double exposure.


From the park, we continued along the trail. Eventually we discovered a patch of little white flowers. Some online searching leads me to believe that they are Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), but I am not certain. Whatever they are, it's my favourite photo of the day.


Later that day, I drove to another spot, where I have previously seen crocuses. I think these flowers are Siberian Squills or just Scillia. If they are, they are considered to be invasive. It was breezy. I did my best. (The middle photo is a double exposure.) 

By the way, I just lay on the ground for these.




I guess tulips will be the next flower to bloom, but they are still probably a week to two off. I am not sure if the forget-me-nots bloom before or after the tulips.


Wednesday, April 10, 2024

A Day Late

I wasn't going to do the eclipse at all, and then when I did watch it, I wasn't going to post about it. But after reading all of your posts yesterday, I decided to join the fray. It's just that I am a day late, and now no one cares. In effect, this is my life story.

I had shot the 2021 eclipse, and well, if you've seen one I figure you've seen them all. Unless, it is total, but it wasn't here.

June 10 2021

Besides, I was disorganized this time around and didn't have glasses, and since cameras can also be damaged, I wasn't all that keen on exposing mine again.

But that morning, a neighbour brought two glasses over, so we did peek out the back a few times, and it was nice to see. Sue used the two glasses for her potd. The theme was sidelight.


I still didn't take any pictures of the event on this occasion, but we did try to take a selfie. It was hilarious. I was holding the phone and also trying to look up ↑ when Sue jabbed the the shutter.

Who are these foolish people?

After awhile, I convinced her to use her watch to take the photo once I was aligned.

Not looking silly this time.

Now, that's better.



Tuesday, April 09, 2024

Hydro and Toques, Eh?

I know that I have addressed Canadian English a bit in the past, but when I clocked into YouTube, this video came up as a suggestion. It compares our English to American English and finds very little difference. However, there are slight variations.

In less than 8 minutes, this teacher describes a few of the differences. He will describe how we say our O's a bit differently before mentioning our predilection for saying Eh, and the two ways in which we use it. He will then mention how we spell a few words differently and that we have some unique words, like tuque/toque.


Indeed, I can't easily discern much difference between my accent and how many Americans speak. Of course, there are some distinct regional variations down there that do stand out whereas we tend to speak a with a pretty uniform accent up here.

One thing though, we do not say oot or aboot for out or about. Eh?